IU basketball scheduling is a hot-button topic every season. Whether it's a Kentucky series or how many cupcake teams are lined up, the schedule talk is something we keep revisiting — this summer in particular.

That's because, as you might remember, the Big Ten tournament is bumped up a week for 2017-18, to accommodate the move to New York. Therefore, the conference schedule will begin with two games in early December, then break until around New Year's, then begin again.

Any time another portion of IU's nonconference schedule is revealed — four more games on Monday — we get a little bit more insight into just how difficult November and December might be for the Hoosiers.

Not that the Hoosier Tip-off Classic is by itself altogether rigorous. Of the four new opponents on Indiana's 2017-18 schedule, only one (Arkansas State, No. 113) finished last season in the RPI top 150.

It's more the layout of the schedule that's noteworthy, complicated by those two conference games in early December.

Educated guessing says the Duke matchup takes top billing among the ACC/Big Ten Challenge's Wednesday games, and tips off at 9 p.m. That means only one Challenge game (Notre Dame at Michigan State the next day) would be played later in the calendar.

I'd guess IU will wind up with the latter configuration: Duke on Wednesday, Big Ten games Saturday and Monday, then the trip to Louisville the following Saturday.

That sets up a brutal stretch we've already discussed in the above-linked piece (linked again here, for reference), one which will see the Hoosiers play three ACC opponents and two league games in a span of less than three weeks.

Now the curtain is coming back on the rest of the nonconference slate. And getting to 13 games, while not impossible, looks abnormally challenging.

If you look at the way the schedule lays out right now, there are a few holes where games might still fit. Nov. 26, for example, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and the weekend before the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

IU already has games the Wednesday and Friday of Thanksgiving week, so that would mean three games in five days, right before that breakneck early December stretch.

It's possible IU could play once between that second Big Ten game and Louisville, or between Louisville and Notre Dame. But either choice would mean a midweek game during either dead week or finals week, something Indiana has traditionally tried to avoid.

Then there's the two-week gap between Notre Dame and the resumption of Big Ten play. That's winter break, which affords more scheduling flexibility. But according to a report from MLive.com, Big Ten coaches have lobbied the league for a mandatory week off between Christmas and New Year's. From Mark Rudner, Big Ten senior associate commissioner, in that piece:

"It's to give the players the week of Christmas-New Year's week off. So there'd be no conference games, no nonconference games. They'll play their last games before Christmas and you don't come back to play until after New Year's. We're specifically looking at that for (2017-18), seeing if it works, and then extending it beyond that."

If that's the case, IU then has a nine-day gap between Notre Dame and Christmas. You could reasonably fit, I would think, three nonconference games in that space, but certainly no more than that, particularly given that playing on Christmas itself seems unlikely.

So, IU has eight nonconference games at the moment, with room in the schedule to fit perhaps four more, comfortably. But that's only 12.

There are two other possibilities, neither of which offers a lot of guarantees, at least not yet.

The first is a game before the Nov. 12 date with Howard. The traditional start date for the regular season is the second Friday in November, which would be Nov. 10 this season, two days before the Howard game. But the NCAA is considering a proposal to move that start date up to the preceding Tuesday, which would provide breathing room for another game.

And there's the second possibility, one that's being examined around the league: What should Big Ten schools do with that week off in March? Usually the last conference to finish its tournament play on Selection Sunday, the Big Ten will play its tournament a week earlier this year.

Some coaches have discussed open scrimmages, or a one-off nonconference game. The problem is whether they can find any takers, with half of college basketball in the midst of conference tournaments, and the other half either staring at the offseason, or preparing for the postseason.

It's all a little bit academic. IU is going to schedule as best it can, given its constraints. Maybe the Hoosiers only play 12 nonconference games. That's fine. There's no rule requiring 13, or 31 regular-season games, either.

But if the scheduling math feels a little bit more like alchemy this season, that's because it is.

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Indiana University men's basketball coach Archie Miller scouts the talent during their Elite Youth Basketball League game Saturday, April 29, 2017, afternoon at the Jonathan Byrd's Fieldhouse at Grand Park in Westfield. Matt Kryger/IndyStar

New Indiana NCAA college basketball coach Archie Miller answers a question during a news conference on the court in Assembly Hall after he was introduced in Bloomington, Ind., Monday, March 27, 2017. Miller was the head coach at Dayton. Michael Conroy, AP

New Indiana NCAA college basketball coach Archie Miller waves as he's introduced at a news conference on the court in Assembly Hall after he was introduced in Bloomington, Ind., Monday, March 27, 2017. Michael Conroy, AP

A welcome sign as spectators watch as Archie Miller, new head coach of Indiana University's men's basketball team, is introduced in Assembly Hall, Bloomington, Monday, March 27, 2017. Robert Scheer/IndyStar

Todd Reid, Bloomington (right), gets the first signature from Archie Miller after he was introduced as the new men's basketball coach in Assembly Hall, Bloomington, Monday, March 27, 2017. Robert Scheer/IndyStar

Archie Miller, new head coach of Indiana University's men's basketball team, talks on the phone in an upper level at Assembly Hall, Bloomington, Monday, March 27, 2017. Earlier, he was introduced as the new Hoosiers coach. Robert Scheer/IndyStar